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This study explores policy makers’, health-care professionals’ and senior volunteers’ perceptions of senior volunteers. Two Norwegian government white papers regarding older adult care and welfare services, which were published over a period of 19 years, were selected for close examination. Furthermore, focus group interviews with a purposeful sample of five senior volunteers and 15 health-care professionals were conducted. The study explores the discursive formations of senior volunteers in the government white papers and how they are negotiated in the senior volunteers’ and the health-care professionals’ narratives. Two dominant discourses were presented in the white papers: a prevention discourse (in which volunteering was presented primarily as a means to prevent volunteers’ loneliness and need for care services) and a sustainability discourse (in which the volunteers were presented as instrumental in future sustainable care services). Both discourses echo a common overarching discourse about a capacity crisis due to the ageing population. The senior volunteers were positioned as partners and active agents in both their own narratives and the health-care professionals’ narratives. Their position as independent and as spokespersons for the less empowered were evident only in the senior volunteers’ own narratives. Only the health-care professionals referenced the prevention discourse and capacity issues. The senior volunteers presented themselves as competent, efficient political actors, and they resisted both the prevention and sustainability discourses. In the senior volunteers’ narratives, social and political participation were interrelated. The study demonstrates that new discursive landscapes must be created to capture the diversity among senior volunteers and their efforts. While senior volunteers must be meaningfully involved in decision making, planning and design, their positions as independent and active agents must also be ensured. Authentic partnerships between senior volunteers and public care services involve a balance between involvement and independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Norwegian government white papers have stated that the Sami population is reluctant to seek help from healthcare services and has traditions of self-help and the use of local networks. Objective: In this article we explore healthcare professionals' discursive constructions of Sami persons with dementia and their families' reluctance to seek and accept help from healthcare services. Design: The article is based on an analysis of focus group interviews with healthcare professionals (n = 18) in four municipalities in Northern Norway with multiethnic populations. A narrative context analysis, which involved an examination of sequences of discourse, was employed. Results: Reluctance to seek and accept help among Sami service users and assumptions about self-support were recurring themes in the focus groups. The reluctance was attributed to macro contexts, such as socio-historical processes and cultural norms, and to micro contexts, such as individual and interpersonal factors including the healthcare professionals' cultural backgrounds and language competence. The healthcare professionals' positioning as insiders or outsiders (Sami or non-Sami) affected their attributions. Conclusions: Local healthcare professionals are at the front line for providing and assessing service users' needs for healthcare services. Consequently, their perceptions of service users' needs are pivotal for achieving equity in healthcare. The established opinion that Sami "take care of their own" and are reluctant to seek and accept help may lead to omissions or neglect. Healthcare professionals' awareness about how present encounters in healthcare settings are framed and shaped by the service users' previous and prevailing experiences of marginalisation and subordination is crucial to avoid omissions or neglect resulting from assumptions about cultural preferences. Discursively shaped boundaries and differences between groups may create the impression that the distance between the groups is too wide to traverse, which in turn may lead to further marginalisation of service users in healthcare encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]